Jump to full article: Albany (NY) Times-Union, 2008-05-03
Author: JAMES CALVIN / NY Association of Convenience Stores
Intro: State Health Commissioner Richard Daines dishes out harsh criticism toward businesses that sell tobacco products, but sounds pretty thin-skinned when someone questions his tactics ("Health Department will continue efforts to cut tobacco consumption," April 24).
Without question, his department should continue its overall effort to reduce tobacco consumption. No one is suggesting otherwise. But the virtue of the crusade does not justify wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on full-page newspaper ads urging private businesses to voluntarily quit selling legal tobacco products they are licensed by another state agency to sell to adult customers.
I'll bet Commissioner Daines a granola bar the state won't raise the extra $265 million he claims the cigarette tax hike will generate. Experience shows that because of rampant cigarette tax evasion sanctioned by our state, higher tax rates actually produce less revenue. . . .
Dr. Daines laments that advances against tobacco consumption are always met with "some flimsy argument." We know the feeling. There's a law on the books that requires the state to collect taxes on the vast quantities of cigarettes sold by Indian tribal stores to non-Indian customers, but the tax department refuses to enforce it, offering one flimsy excuse after another for defying the constitution. Why isn't the commissioner pressing Governor Paterson -- who voted for the law as a state senator -- to enforce it?
Speaking of double standards, why does Commissioner Daines' department carry out undercover tobacco stings to detect and punish any underage sales at our stores, but refuses to do them at competing tribal outlets that typically sell 50 times the cigarette volume our stores sell?
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